Let them eat cake: extra rations as Kim turns 63

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Party like it's 1959 ... North Korean officials hold a meeting to honour Kim Jong-il's birthday. He kept a low profile as the nation celebrated his 63rd.Photo: AP

North Korea reported itself to be in a "festive mood" yesterday
for the birthday of its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, despite
intensifying pressure from the outside world over his regime's
defiant nuclear weapons policy.

As usual a national holiday was observed for the occasion. Mr
Kim, who turned 63, has been in power since the death of his father
and the regime's founder, Kim Il-sung, in 1994.

Among the highlights of the day were exhibitions of the
"kimjongilia" flower, while the state-run Rakwon machinery complex
in the border city of Sinuiju unveiled a mosaic mural depicting the
leader.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry held a dinner party for
diplomats and representatives of international organisations in
Pyongyang, while the Ministry of People's Armed Forces gave a
dinner and cultural performance for foreign military missions.

But no foreigners caught sight of Mr Kim himself, who normally
keeps a low profile.

The official Korean Central News Agency reported a "festive
mood" as "the most auspicious holiday of the nation" arrived.
"Pyongyang and local towns are in festive attire and political and
cultural functions have been held," the agency said.

Authorities announced efforts to alleviate the austere rations
endured by most people in North Korea, where 6 million of the 23
million population are malnourished, United Nations agencies
say.

Official reports said the Government had stepped up production
of textiles and shoes from the beginning of the year to help the
party atmosphere, while citizens in Pyongyang were offered special
dishes of pheasant and deer meat.

A band of young people sang birthday songs atop the snow-covered
Mount Paektu close to the Chinese border where, the official myth
has it, Mr Kim was born in a log cabin during his parents guerilla
struggle against Korea's Japanese occupiers in 1942. Most scholars
believe the younger Kim was born in the safety of a far-eastern
Soviet army camp near Khabarovsk.

Even Pyongyang's friends used the celebrations to urge a return
to the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks in Beijing. Last week
North Korea said it was suspending attendance "indefinitely" and
firmed up its claims to have built nuclear weapons.

"We hope the six-sided process will be renewed very soon," the
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Alexeyev, said at a
reception at the North Korean embassy in Moscow to mark Mr Kim's
birthday.

Russia "speaks out firmly ... for not allowing nuclear weapons
on the Korean peninsula," the Interfax news agency quoted Mr
Alexeyev as saying.